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Authors: Tim Wynne-Jones
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the promontory above the lagoon, I built a shelter, which I work on all the time. It is made out of wooden packing cases, stout bamboo posts and beams, and with a roof of palm leaves. I have notched into one of the posts the number of days I have been here and in that way kept track of the passing of the summer. Of my time on the raft reaching this island, I can only guess. One night, two nights, thirty-one?
I made a hammock of fish netting I found washed up in a terrible snarl on the beach. Ah, the beach. It is like a postbox!
The nights are warm, but I found canvas to hang from the bamboo beams of the shelter for when the breezes pick up, walls that flap and snap in the wind. After every rainfall I add more palm leaves to the roof, once it dries out, so that now my shelter is dry even in a hard downpour. I hope it will be sturdy enough for the monsoon season, but by then, who knows, I might be back with you and we will read this together. Of this, I fondly dream.
Farther along the headland from my dwelling, a stone’s throw, at the very highest point on the island, I found a stout coral tree, over eighty feet high, with wide embracing branches. I knew these trees from my youth in Okinawa. There were a few bright crimson flowers on it when I first discovered it, but I knew in the spring it would put on a brilliant show if I were around to see it. There were black tiger’s claw spines all over the tree, but I cut and smoothed myself a route up through the prickles and built a platform, a watchtower, where I could see for miles and not be seen from below.
From this high spot at night, I could see the lights of another island. At first I thought it to be a ship far out at sea, but it was there all the time in the same place, never moving. So I had not traveled so far, really! You can’t imagine how this renewed my hope of a return to civilization. As I grew stronger, I wrestled with the idea that I should go, for surely the island across the sound must be Tinian, unless it was Saipan — even better! 3 If it was Saipan, then that is where you are, Hisako, and there was every reason to want to return. I knew, of course, that Saipan was invaded before Tinian, and I knew something of the result of the invasion, the terrible loss of life there. But I also knew this: reports are not always accurate. More important, I knew that
you were alive
! I knew this as well as I knew that I was alive. You, Hisako, were the one shining thing that made my own survival an imperative. And in my braver moments, I imagined making a sail for my raft, the quicker to get to you. There was all manner of machinery on the island, albeit in mangled bits and pieces, some of it. I might even have made myself a motor, rigged up a propeller —
sped
to my beloved!
But the thing that held me back was that the islands, both of them, were now in the hands of the enemy, as far as I knew. And who could say what would happen to me when I landed there, or if I would even make it to land before they opened fire? The image of the American soldiers tending the injured, the black one caring for the baby, haunted me as I tossed and turned some restless nights. I had been led to believe that the
gaijin
would as likely tear a child to pieces with their bare teeth as look at it. My own eyes told me differently. And I dared to believe that you, as a civilian, would be spared any suffering. But what I couldn’t know was how they would treat an enemy soldier. Prison camp? I wouldn’t mind that. My job now was to stay alive. But why not stay alive here on the heart-shaped island? In time, the war must end. The Empire would rally or fall. I realized that it was wicked to suggest that the Empire might ever be defeated, and if this account was to fall into the wrong hands, I might be had up on a court-martial. So let me quickly add for anyone to see that the Emperor is in my prayers every night, and it is my fervent desire that we will prevail! But in any case, it was just
I made a hammock of fish netting I found washed up in a terrible snarl on the beach. Ah, the beach. It is like a postbox!
The nights are warm, but I found canvas to hang from the bamboo beams of the shelter for when the breezes pick up, walls that flap and snap in the wind. After every rainfall I add more palm leaves to the roof, once it dries out, so that now my shelter is dry even in a hard downpour. I hope it will be sturdy enough for the monsoon season, but by then, who knows, I might be back with you and we will read this together. Of this, I fondly dream.
Farther along the headland from my dwelling, a stone’s throw, at the very highest point on the island, I found a stout coral tree, over eighty feet high, with wide embracing branches. I knew these trees from my youth in Okinawa. There were a few bright crimson flowers on it when I first discovered it, but I knew in the spring it would put on a brilliant show if I were around to see it. There were black tiger’s claw spines all over the tree, but I cut and smoothed myself a route up through the prickles and built a platform, a watchtower, where I could see for miles and not be seen from below.
From this high spot at night, I could see the lights of another island. At first I thought it to be a ship far out at sea, but it was there all the time in the same place, never moving. So I had not traveled so far, really! You can’t imagine how this renewed my hope of a return to civilization. As I grew stronger, I wrestled with the idea that I should go, for surely the island across the sound must be Tinian, unless it was Saipan — even better! 3 If it was Saipan, then that is where you are, Hisako, and there was every reason to want to return. I knew, of course, that Saipan was invaded before Tinian, and I knew something of the result of the invasion, the terrible loss of life there. But I also knew this: reports are not always accurate. More important, I knew that
you were alive
! I knew this as well as I knew that I was alive. You, Hisako, were the one shining thing that made my own survival an imperative. And in my braver moments, I imagined making a sail for my raft, the quicker to get to you. There was all manner of machinery on the island, albeit in mangled bits and pieces, some of it. I might even have made myself a motor, rigged up a propeller —
sped
to my beloved!
But the thing that held me back was that the islands, both of them, were now in the hands of the enemy, as far as I knew. And who could say what would happen to me when I landed there, or if I would even make it to land before they opened fire? The image of the American soldiers tending the injured, the black one caring for the baby, haunted me as I tossed and turned some restless nights. I had been led to believe that the
gaijin
would as likely tear a child to pieces with their bare teeth as look at it. My own eyes told me differently. And I dared to believe that you, as a civilian, would be spared any suffering. But what I couldn’t know was how they would treat an enemy soldier. Prison camp? I wouldn’t mind that. My job now was to stay alive. But why not stay alive here on the heart-shaped island? In time, the war must end. The Empire would rally or fall. I realized that it was wicked to suggest that the Empire might ever be defeated, and if this account was to fall into the wrong hands, I might be had up on a court-martial. So let me quickly add for anyone to see that the Emperor is in my prayers every night, and it is my fervent desire that we will prevail! But in any case, it was just
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